luxphl

The same way anyone would come up with a time estimate if asked how long it would take to mow the lawn with a pair of scissors or lawnmower -- experience and extrapolation.

Check out the sibling comments. Complex does not mean hard to use. My car is complex, but it's pretty easy to get a driver's license.

Gatekeeping refers to making it seem like it's too hard to get into and therefore not worth trying for beginners/non-technical folk.

That's fair. I have an app that is rendered server side (Node.js/Express) and the frontend is built with jQuery. Made sense at the time. But I ended up adding two very interactive modules and decided React was best for them and added it in piecemeal, and I was right. But now trying to integrate the new features with the older ones, I wish I started with React for everything. This happens more frequently than I'd like and it's why I'm skeptical of saying SPA's are bad. To me they make my life easier and are very flexible.

I have worked as a consultant for 5 years where I billed people for my time, and paid at least $200k to other contractors in that period for help on projects; it's not made up and it is based on my experience tracking my own time and productivity, and that of my subcontractors.

I do think it's more abstract and harder to justify properly when someone is a well paid salaried employee for a FAANG. But that's not me.

I truly do not think it's a lie. Not sure why you think it's a thrill. It's saved me hundreds of hours, if not more.

It's certainly faster to use jQuery to change a CSS attribute than it is to setup a React project but what's not considered in that calculation is maintaining the state of that attribute or making changes to the logic in the future. Especially on code you didn't write originally.

If all you have to do is validate a form, sure, use jQuery if that's your cup of tea. But I would still rather use something like React because I know I'm less likely to write buggy code or introduce a regression in the future. To each their own though.

The calculator on my desk is a (relatively) complex set of circuitry but it sure saves me a lot of time when I do my taxes

This is what I meant by gatekeeping; there is common misconception that you have to go looking for a library to solve a problem. And it makes it seem like there's a higher barrier to entry than there is.

But the reality is that React is plain HTML and Javascript, in a less error-prone and maintainable package.

Everything you can do with vanilla JS you can do in React, but with React you benefit from being forced to separate the state of the DOM from manipulating it.

I don't buy the hipster-centric logic, for me it comes down to productivity. The bugs of yesteryear, tracking down which procedural code path led to modifying a variable, are mostly gone with React. And if you don't use it (or something like it), you end up implementing a subset of it anyway because it's a foundational part of coordinating UI with business logic. /shrug

I empathize with the author but client-side technologies like React have a pretty clear advantage that explains why they're popular: for the people that are tasked to make websites (i.e. us, HN readers), they're easier to work with and they save us time. It outweighs all the end-user-facing cons by a lot, because companies need us, and our salaries are expensive.

It's true that they are largely more complex than O.G. web technologies, and it worries me that they create a sort of gatekeeping effect on the industry, but I think it's disingenuous to outright claim React & co. are bad from a development perspective. I sometimes wonder if the people claiming to hate client-side technologies or disable JS in their browsers have actually ever had to build a complex website to put food on their table. My bet is the answer is often no, or they are a contrarian in general.

I've done lots of native development on Desktop and Mobile and I can sort of see how you get there if that's your point of reference, but if you work on web apps daily it's clear why the popular technologies are popular, and it's not hype.

I have a company I started with 2 university professors in the geospatial analytics space and as I work on building out the tech I am increasingly anxious about spending since we're pre-revenue and it's all out of my pocket for now. This Microsoft for Startups is appealing to me. Anyone know of any similar programs I should look into?

Completely fair! Just not the right tool for us & our work.